It is doubtful whether the explanation adduced by the Chancellor, in regard to this extravagance, this incredible folly, afforded any real degree of solace to Mr. Adamson or to any other honourable members, who inclined to view the financial outlook with such marked concern. "The National Debt proper, exclusive of what we call other capital liabilities, was," as Mr. Chamberlain pointed out, "on March 31st this year (1919), 7,435 millions," or 6,790 millions more than it was at the outbreak of the war; and "of the actual debt incurred, internal debt accounts for, approximately, 6,085 millions, and the external debt, approximately, 1,350 millions." There were, it is true, "certain assets, such as obligations of our Allies and Dominions, votes of credit no longer required, and payments in respect of indemnities from our enemies." But when all was said and done, "when every proper allowance is made for these assets--the amount and value of which as well as the date at which we may expect to receive payment for them is necessarily uncertain--the burden of debt left to us is still very formidable." The tone predominant throughout this outline, indicative of the manner in which the taxpayers' millions were being used or misused for their especial benefit, was undeniably pessimistic. On the other hand, every cloud has its silver lining, and the occasional gleams, which illumined the lowering trend of Mr. Chamberlain's forebodings, become intensified a thousandfold when we reflect upon the horrors which we, in our insular position of security, escaped, and when we ponder over the fate that would most assuredly have been ours had the Warrior Warlord won the day. Writing to the _New York World_ in April, 1915, Mr. Gustav Roeder throws some light upon the state of mind of the German women alone. "Talk about your so-called atrocities which our men are said to have committed in Belgium," they said to me, "it would be nothing in comparison with what our men would do in England, and we women want to be there too." As a sample of the treatment accorded to the unfortunate inhabitants of those portions of the fair land of France which the invader succeeded in over-running, we may take this deposition of the _Times'_ special correspondent with the French Army as being sufficiently convincing. Writing under the date of March 21st, 1917, he says, "when the Germans left Noyon on Sunday, they took with them fifty young French girls, who, they said, were to act as officers' servants. When he (a distinguished French officer) was on a part of the Somme front now taken over by the British, he saw with his own eyes photographs, taken from German prisoners, of German officers sitting at dinner and being waited upon at table by naked women."